Nintendo is finally asking their customers what they think about Game-Key Cards.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Nintendo Co. Ltd. in Japan has started sending out customer surveys via email to gauge consumer sentiment around the product.
We’ll share the survey Q&A below, but the survey is made to be short, and also to help explain how Game-Key Cards work to their respondents. Past surveys actually did seem to have led Nintendo to make certain decisions regarding future products, so if you were not happy with this new hybrid physical/digital format, you can express your unhappiness in these surveys.
Or at least, you would be able to do so, if you owned a Japanese Nintendo Switch 2. While we do suspect that US Switch 2 account holders will also eventually get a similar survey, Nintendo may have asked their Japanese users first for a reason.
The Switch 2 is already a worldwide hit, but Nintendo’s domestic Japanese audience may be more important now than for previous game consoles. The uncertainty caused by the Liberation Day tariffs, and the US government’s willingness to create new tariffs or rules for international trade is making Nintendo hesitate to support their potentially largest audience.
So, this does not necessarily mean that Nintendo will give up on selling their consoles in the US. But they may be positioning to prioritize the Japanese market over other countries and regions around the world. The US is transparently the most important among these, and that seems to be the reason that Nintendo asked Japanese gamers first.
Game developers and many gamers know and have spoken out about what they don’t like about Game-Key Cards, but as we pointed out, we don’t know quite yet how the public feels about the format. These surveys will probably also be taken as preliminary in nature, as more and more consumers figure out what they can and can’t do, and then they’ll decide how they feel about it.
At the start of this month, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked in an earnings call if Game-Key Cards sold well or not, but he didn’t really answer that question. That isn’t really an indication if they sold poorly, but it does look like Nintendo isn’t necessarily invested in forcing gamers to adopt it wholesale.
But then again, we can’t discount the possibility that gamers will find a reason to buy these cards. What if there is sufficient interest in a market for used digital games? We may have to wait a little longer to learn the public consensus on that.
